Quiet Day Ahead of RBA Meeting Minutes Tomorrow
AUD
The Aussie dollar opens the week mixed against majors, rebalancing itself over the weekend after the boost we received from China's stronger-than-expected Industrial Production and Retail Sales data. The welcomed data suggests recent measures including property support policies are starting to bear fruit, which could provide support for the liquid-proxy Aussie dollar moving forward. Asian equities managed a positive session with the Nikkei up 1% and the ASX leading the indices up 1.3%. To commodities, Copper – 0.7%, Iron Ore down -2.4%, while Silver and Gold were up 1.3% and 0.7% respectively. No local news today with all eyes on tomorrow's Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes. Notably, China's 1 and 5 year Loan Prime Rates are set to be released on Wednesday morning. The latest set of economic data suggests the risk of a Chinese deflationary spiral has abated by another notch, with the 1 and 5 year Loan Prime Rates expected to remain unchanged at 3.45% and 4.2% respectively.
USD
The AUDUSD opens relatively flat at 0.6435, retracing a tad over the weekend after US manufacturing sales came in stronger than expected, as did the Empire Manufacturing index seeing us lose Friday's gains. Notably, the University of Michigan's inflation expectations printed at +3.1%, being the lowest expected rate in over 2 years. Wall Street closed in the red with NASDAQ down 1.6%, Dow Jones down 0.8% and the S&P 500 0.3 % lower. No major news set for release today, with this week's main event being the Fed interest rate decision on Thursday morning.
EUR
The AUDEUR pair maintains its 0.60 handle, opening lower at 0.6034 after losing some recent gains over the weekend. European equities opened a touch higher before dipping with the DAX up 0.6% and CAC closing up at 1%. No news set for today and a relatively quiet week ahead of Friday's Flash PMI releases.
GBP
The AUDGBP briefly the held the 0.52 handle, before falling and retracing over the weekend opening at 0.5193. The FTSE remained in the green up 0.7%. Busy week ahead for UK data releases having already had the Rightmove HPI m/m released this morning (coming through better than expected at 0.4%), however, the main events will be Wednesday's CPI y/y and Thursday's Bank of England interest rate decision. While the central bank is expected to be near the end of its tightening cycle, one more 25bps hike on Thursday is priced in, with the BoE expected to hike to 5.5%.
NZD
The AUDNZD reclaims its 1.09 handle after rallying early this morning opening at 1.0905. The rally was due to the BusinessNZ Services Index coming through lower than expected this morning at 47.1. No further data set for release today, however, this Thursday we will have the GDP q/q out of New Zealand.